The Walking Stick (28 page)

And so it was. One o’clock came, and with it McCarthy again. He followed an identical procedure. His light came nowhere near me. When he had gone I got up and sat down in the chair again,
and began to watch the minute hand of my luminous watch. Only twenty minutes to go. My part was almost done. Perhaps for me the worst was already over.

Twenty minutes past one. I got up, went to the door and out. One of the men should now be on the first floor, the other in the telephone office on the ground floor. The pilot
light burned at the foot of the stairs. I went up.

Showrooms haunted in the half light. A great Persian vase loomed like a man standing in the doorway. The offices were down to the left; a light under the telephone-room door; Mr Greeley’s
office in darkness. Halfway there I remembered gloves. ‘Don’t forget to wear gloves whatever you do,’ Jack Foil said. ‘I know your fingerprints will be about, but you might
leave one in an inconvenient place.’ Too late to go back to the cupboard where I’d dropped them off. A handkerchief; wrap it round the handle of Mr Greeley’s door, go in. Enough
light from the passage to see.

A small square office; he usually kept it manned during the day, though often he was himself upstairs. I knew exactly where the switches were: between the bookcases a small cupboard where he
kept drinks; behind the bottles were the switches, two square brown bakelite boxes with grey cables leading up the wall. The switches were white lettered on red and marked
ON
and
OFF
. Move the bottles very carefully; a fingerprint here might tell a lot. Clumsy work with a handkerchief, but I got them out and reached in again. Both
switches down. I pushed one up and then the other. Each made a noisy clack.

Wait, half afraid of a booby trap of some sort, perhaps a separate alarm that rang if the switches were touched. Nothing. I took away my hand and knocked over a glass.

It didn’t fall out of the cupboard: it rolled along the edge and I caught it with my other hand in time. Gulp spittle, swallow fear, heart swelling. Fingerprint. Pick the glass up, put it
in pocket. Safer now thrown on some dump miles away.

Silence still, but time passing. In three or four minutes McCarthy or Gaskell would be coming down. I went out. Light under the telephone-room door but no movement, no alarm. Perhaps the other
man was dozing. Nearly half an hour before he made his next call to headquarters.

Now back past the head of the stairs, through the book-auction room, then the passage with the counter, where things were received, then the narrow hall, then the door leading to Bruton
Yard.

It was of stout oak and locked with a five-lever mortise deadlock. Also a conventional key to turn, but this hardly ever used. Then heavy bolts top and bottom. Bottom one came easily but the top
I could barely reach. Back to counter for chair. Another fingerprint? But this no matter: I was always being called to the counter. Bolts were different. Very careful with the bolts.

The top bolt came down, I pulled the chair quietly back, turned the mortise lock and flicked up the catch. Then pulled open the door.

A man came in, horrible, like a nightmare: I gulped, hadn’t expected the stocking masks. Then another, who squeezed my arm. ‘Bless you, love.’ A third. A fourth. The fourth
stopped briefly, said: ‘Car’s in Berkeley Square, just where we said. Bye for now.’ Ted.

Then I was out in the foggy night, and the door was shut behind me.

Bruton Yard is a cul-de-sac which spreads out at its closed end into a modest little square. It is used as a rear entrance by a dozen firms whose premises back onto it. There are two sodium
street lamps, but our corner of the yard is in shadow.

The fog swirled in the distant lights of Bruton Street. Still a couple of windows lit in the building next to Whittington’s, a firm of textile exporters. Seven cars and a furniture van
parked about the yard. The old Austin saloon was one of the cars. Dustbins; a cardboard box lying on its side, an evening paper curling damply at the edges, empty milk bottles.

I shivered, wondering what was going on behind the door at my back. Since the guards could be taken separately, they
might
not resist. But still robbery with violence. Even if not hurt
they’d be tied and gagged; so a much heavier sentence if things went wrong. And I as much involved as if I were in that building now. Accessory before and after the fact.

Ought to go. Five minutes’ walk. But it meant walking through brightly lit, half-empty streets. And although my limp was not nearly so noticeable, no policeman would fail to notice that it
was there. One-thirty, of course, not late for London. They’d never stop me or ask. Chances were I’d never even see a policeman.

But I did not move, needing time after the terrible tensions of these last minutes, almost waiting, listening, as if I should hear something from the building just left. Safe in the shadows of
the yard.

A tabby cat moved across the light, came toward me mewing. I knew her, she came from one of the other offices, sometimes walked into Whittington’s and was given a saucer of milk. Hand down
and she rubbed against it. A touch of warmth and homeliness and sanity. I picked her up and walked a few yards with her and left her on a low wall mewing.

The end of the yard. There stopped to put on headscarf – a bit of protection and it would disguise my fairly noticeable hair. Then after fumbling in pockets realized the scarf was in the
cupboard, along with my gloves. I had dressed up to go home to deceive Smith-Williams and had stayed so dressed in the cupboard until the enclosed space had made me feel queer. Then I had dragged
off scarf and gloves and dropped them on the floor.

Danger? My scarf and gloves had every right to be in the building. I had once left a coat three weeks. But in that cupboard? If the police found them before I did, would they pick them out and
ask whose are they? Easily identifiable, particularly the Spanish scarf. Why put them there? Once suspicious, many more questions? What time did you leave? Who saw you leave?

Two young men were coming down Bruton Street laughing and trying to hail a taxi. I kept in the shadow, but one of them saw me and gave a wolf whistle. I turned back into the yard.

Nobody here at all. Perfect silence. Stand away from the cold glare of the street lamps. Footsteps. Someone else in Bruton Street. I retreated, backing away, back to the oak door.

The tabby cat leaped into the light, making arches like a cantilever bridge, came mewing, then stopped dead. Some interesting smell took her interest. Head turned, she stalked away.

Had they locked the door on the other side? Almost certainly. But only five minutes had passed. I took out my handkerchief and tried the handle. It turned and I went back in.

Just as when left. The pilot light burning dimly in the passage and another above the counter. It was as if the four men I’d admitted had been sucked into the
silence.

I went as far as the counter. A book open on it, a pair of scales, a used coffee cup. Go on into the book auction room, with its bookshelves, its central table, its rostrum. Footsteps. A
man.

He looked at me like an animal ready to kill; hand behind back, hand raised; danger; but the hand dropped. ‘What th’ hell?’

Strange voice – one I didn’t know. ‘I came back. I’d forgotten my gloves.’

His blurred face stared. Then someone behind him: Leigh’s figure. ‘Deborah! How did you get in? Why’ve you come back? . . .’

‘I forgot my gloves.’

‘Christ! What a thing to do! Len, you were supposed to do the door—’

‘I thought I ’ad . . .’

‘The catch – I put it up,’ I said.

‘Where are your gloves?’

‘In a cupboard downstairs. Are they – have you . . .’

‘What? The guards? Yes. Go and get your gloves for Pete’s sake. Leave the door now till she’s out of the way, Len.’

‘I’ll watch it,’ said the stranger. ‘Or some bleeding copper . . .’ He went past me.

I stared at Leigh. He said: ‘Hurry. We’ve no time to waste.’

‘Are they all right?’

‘Who? The guards? Sure. We’ve not hurt ’em. The little one gave in without us laying a finger on him.’

‘And the other?’

‘Len had to tap him. But it’s a trick they have. You get it across the shoulders – back of the neck – and you’re only out for three minutes. Now
hurry
.’

‘Can I stay?’ I said.

‘What in hell d’you mean?’

‘I’m afraid of going to the car.’

‘But there’s nothing to it!’

‘If I’m seen – with my
limp
. There are not many girls like me about. If a policeman sees me he won’t forget.’

‘Yes, but if you stay here . . .’

‘I’ve been here half the night. What difference does it make?’

‘But it breaks the arrangements.’

‘What does that matter?’

‘Hell, I don’t know what to say . . . OK, Len?’

‘OK,’ said the stranger, coming back. ‘Don’t forget to lock it again when you let ’er out.’

‘She wants to stay.’

‘What?’

‘She wants to stay.’

Len shrugged. ‘It’s not my show.’

‘It makes no difference,’ I said again. ‘I’m in this anyhow.’

Leigh hesitated. ‘Go and get your gloves. I’ll ask Ted.’

Len disappeared toward the stairs.

I said: ‘Where’s Jack Foil?’

‘At home. Where d’you expect him to be?’

We moved together toward the stairs. Beyond were the show-rooms and the two doors: the telephone room was still lighted: it blazed brighter suddenly as Len went in.

‘Who is he?’

‘We needed a fourth. His job is to guard the guards. Where did you leave your Goddamned gloves?’

‘In the cupboard downstairs.’

‘I’ll come down with you.’

We went together, his gloved hand gripping my upper arm tightly. ‘Did you have any trouble?’ he asked.

‘It was a long wait.’

‘It’s over now. I
wish
you’d go.’

‘No. I’ll . . . see it through.’

I got to the cupboard and he flashed his torch. I picked up the gloves and pulled them on, tied the scarf over my head.

Footsteps on the stairs. Another man. ‘D’you want to stay, Deb?’ Ted Sandymount.

‘Yes. There’s much more risk in that five-minute walk.’

‘Well, search me, I don’t know. I don’t know what Jack’ll say.’ He hurried past us, walked toward the end of the building where the strongroom was. An extra light
burned there.

‘God, you ought to be wearing a thing over your face!’ Leigh exclaimed. ‘Take one of your stockings off. If you’re seen . . .’

‘Well, if the guards are both in the telephone room . . .’

‘Jack’ll be furious if you get in the way. I’ve got to help Irons.’

‘There’s no reason why I should get in the way!’

He hurried off toward the strongroom, and after a minute I followed him. Perhaps in my bones I knew that returning for scarf and gloves had been an excuse. I was too deeply committed with Leigh
to want to separate from him now, too committed altogether to this thing. In any event there was no horror for me greater than sitting in a cupboard for six hours. This, in a sense, was a release.
Ted Sandymount was on his stomach, doing something to the power plug in the wall. John Irons had pulled off his nylon and had loosened his collar; hands on hips he was staring at the strongroom
door and whistling gently; he alone of the four men looked unhurried, as if he had hours to spend. When he saw us he raised his anthropoid eyebrows and muttered out of the corner of his mouth:

‘This is a bit harder than you said.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Leigh asked urgently.

‘Nothing’s wrong but what can’t be put right. But this door will take a lot of blowing. I suppose you don’t know where they keep the keys, do you, lady?’

‘Each director has a set. No one else.’

‘Hm.’ He patted the wall, where the corner of the strongroom abutted on the passage. He was different, in his element, more talkative, where the others were less. ‘There must
be a grill somewhere. You got to have air . . .’

Ted Sandymount said: ‘D’you want two points or one?’

‘One’ll do for the time being. There’s a lift in the place somewhere, isn’t there?’

‘Just a furniture lift,’ I said.

‘That’s right. I may want extra power, Ted. But I’ll let you know.’

He took out a hammer and began to tap at the strongroom wall. After a minute he stopped and put a fruit gum in his mouth. He’d brought all his gear in a canvas cricket bag. It was odd;
I’d thought he’d go to great pains to disguise what he carried, but this was the sort of bag any policeman would suspect, since no one played cricket in February, least of all a gaunt,
pallid-faced, black-browed man in his fifties.

‘Chisel,’ he said to Leigh.

As if the feel of the wall gave him some guidance he began to chip at the brick about shoulder high, two feet from the corner. In five minutes he had made a sizeable hole about a finger-width
across and a few inches deep.

Ted had made his connections and plugged in the drill. It whirred noisily until it was switched off.

Irons looked at Leigh. ‘Carpets.’

‘What sort?’

‘Any sort.’ He glanced at me. ‘She’ll know where they are.’

We went off together. There were big carpets upstairs but these would take too much lifting. We got one from Smith-Williams’s office, one from Grant Stokes’s, one from the passage.
When we dragged them back, Irons was unwrapping a bag that contained slim sticks of things like grease paint. He took out one and gently peeled off the paper. Inside was a yellowish putty-like
substance, and he began to ease and press some of this into the hole he had made. Ted Sandymount had pulled off his nylon and was tinkering with some thin wire and a little dry-cell battery not
much bigger than a torch battery.

Leigh pulled off his own stocking; relief to see his features again after the distortion of the mask.

Irons had filled up the hole and was smoothing it over. Two wires were projecting, and he plugged the end with plasticine. He muttered to Leigh, ‘How about taking her ladyship
upstairs?’

‘I can go myself,’ I said, ‘if you want to get rid of me.’